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Besides South China Sea claimant issues, maritime security in South East Asia has predominantly focussed on piracy/armed robbery and kidnap for ransom. While the narratives of the day only focus on the event itself, there is a need to address the bigger picture of what the region needs to deal with. This was the subject of the inaugural series on the Maritime Security Brown Bag for 2017 organised by MIMA.

The first speaker for the event, Captain Martin A Sebastian (R), from MIMA spoke on the importance of concerted efforts in the fight against crime. He explained that most maritime crimes are conducted by organised crime syndicates and as such a holistic approach is required from law makers, government agencies, private industry and the coastal community. He noted that the national single maritime point of contact (nmpoc) was established by ASEAN members as recognition that no single agency or country can deter, detect, disrupt, and destroy the logistics chain of organised crime syndicates. Therefore, there is a need to be organised against organised crime.

The second speaker, Mr Karsten Von Hoesslin, has been actively venturing around Southeast Asia in trying to understand the networked organisation of organised crime groups in the region. Understanding the causes that motivate piracy helps in assisting authorities reduce the numbers of cases. However, valuable information sharing is vital in the fight against piracy, which Mr Karsten strongly believes is the biggest hurdle that the region has to solve.

The final speaker, Dr Eric Frecon confirmed that the problem is successful implementation of law enforcement in the region. The geographical nature of the region not only allows the breeding of pirates, but creates challenges and difficulties to local authorities to address piracy problems.

Participants for the event engaged the speakers actively on various issues. They commended the speakers for enlightening them on the subject of maritime security and looked forward to future events on maritime security.